1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc apparatus that performs information recording or reproduction on a disc recording medium, such as a CD, a DVD, or the like, and more specifically to the fitting structure of a clamper.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a disc apparatus, known as a conventional disc apparatus, which, when a disc tray loaded with a disc recording medium transfers into the main body, clamps and holds the disc recording medium between a clamper and a turntable provided in the main body to perform information recording or reproduction on the disc recording medium. Further, in recent years, various apparatuses with reduced load of operation of separating a clamper from a turntable, that is, unclamping operation have been suggested.
For example, in an optical disc drive device disclosed in JP-A-2004-118897, when a clamper moves downward in conjunction with the downward movement of a spindle motor, an anti-falling flange part of the clamper is brought into partial contact with the holding surface of a clamper holder. This separates the clamper at the partial contact part from the turntable without imposing a large load thereon. As a result, load imposed on a loading motor is reduced, and the disc recording medium is easily ejected.
More specifically, the holding surface of the clamper holder is inclined with respect to the disc recording medium located at the loading position. With this configuration, the clamper and the clamper holder abut each other at one point at the initial stage of unloading. Therefore, based on the principle of the lever, a force required for separating the clamper from the turntable becomes smaller compared to when the holding surface of the clamper holder is in parallel to the disc recording medium.
JP-A-2003-308640 discloses a clamping mechanism of a disc apparatus capable of separating a clamper from a turntable with a small force against magnet attraction. More specifically, at unclamping operation, a projection or bump provided in a flange of a clamper holder opposing a flange of the clamper is so configured as to lift up the position located off the clamper center.
However, the configuration disclosed in JP-A-2004-118897 requires a large space for the holding surface of a clamper holder in the height direction thereof in order to incline the clamper by a desired angle at unloading, which is disadvantageous in terms of slimming down of the apparatus. The configuration disclosed in JP-A-2003-308640 corresponds to a disc apparatus of the type that performs unclamping and clamping by opening and closing a cover, and thus cannot be applied directly to a disc apparatus of the type that performs unclamping and clamping by moving a turntable on a traverse mechanism upward and downward. In addition, a conventional general structure suffers from problems, such as a small degree of freedom in the fitting method; large operation sound generated when a voltage is increased to ensure the unclamping operation against magnet attraction; and the like.